"Stick Together"
"Hello Stacey and the whole In Bloom Team -
Jamey and I got married on June 8th with the beautiful rings you created for us. We wanted to share our love story with you as well as a couple of pictures. When a friend asked us the night before the wedding what we were most excited about, I easily answered, “Wearing the rings”!
Thank you for everything. - Jamey and Jamey
About 30 years ago Jamey put a “for rent” ad in the FNP for the little log cabin that sat next door to her house in Braddock Heights. Minde and her fiance, also named Jamey, responded to the ad and quickly became next-door neighbors and fast friends with Jamey, the landlord. To minimize confusion, Minde forever referred to them as Boy Jamey and Girl Jamey, and their lives intertwined through shared meals and vacations, countless miles walking dogs and running trails together. Years later when Minde received the devastating news that her breast cancer had become metastatic, the fear and grief soon turned into an intense passion for spreading as much love and happiness to as many people as possible. Minde was a force for good in this world, and she made sure that the people she loved most would continue to experience the joys of love even after she was gone.
A few weeks before she died, Minde told both Jameys that she needed them to listen with open minds. She loved them deeply and wanted them to promise to “stick together” and keep going on adventures together. She had been saying this for years, but this time she added, “If someday your friendship were to turn into love, nothing would make me happier.”
As Jamey and Jamey picked up the pieces of their lives and leaned on each other to move forward through grief and loss, they realized how much she was right. They were incredibly similar people, they still loved going on adventures together, and they began to fall in love with one another very easily. Their love deepened over the next couple of years and they began planning their shared lives by building a house together on a special Maine property filled with birch and pine trees.
Jamey and Jamey knew that their wedding rings needed to reflect their love for each other, their shared love for the natural world, and also for Minde. Since birch trees, with their easily peeling bark represent renewal and growth, the birch bark designs that Stacey carved into their platinum rings represent everything that they wanted. With the handwritten inscription inside each ring that says, “stick together” Stacey crafted the perfect, personalized rings to symbolize their unique love and love story.